Slow and Steady
by symphonyofsilence
Summary: Ichi/Ishi - Ishida takes Ichigo out for a spin in his first car, and Ichigo finds out how he drives.


Title: Slow and Steady

Rating: PG

Characters: Ichigo/Ishida

Summary: Ishida takes Ichigo out for a spin in his new car.

Warnings: Boy kisses, other than that, nothing.

This is just cute crackiness. The idea kinda popped into my head and refused to leave me alone until I wrote it. It's totally unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own and I take full responsibility for them.

And of course, Bleach so isn't mine.

* * *

><p>Ishida had a car.<p>

It was second hand, there was a rent in the driver's seat cushion that had been hastily covered up with duct tape, and the back passenger window didn't roll down completely, but still, Ishida had a _car_. And Ichigo was equal parts envious and enthralled.

It was better than flashstep—no, better than flashstep in human form, like that weird Quincy foot maneuver Ishida could do. It was the embodiment of absolute freedom, of finally being independent enough to go anywhere they wanted on four wheels. When Ishida had come to pick him up that afternoon to give him a first drive out, Ichigo had practically drooled all over the thing. Ishida had to tell him to stop leaving his dirty paw prints all over his new, and surprisingly greenish grey, instead of white car, although Ichigo had a feeling he was already saving up for a paint job.

The enthusiasm however, had worn off faster than he would have liked when Ichigo found out how his boyfriend drove.

"The idea," Ishida said as they took yet another agonizingly slow turn through an intersection, "is to get used to the feel of the vehicle."

"Yeah, I get that but..." Ichigo sighed dramatically. He was sitting in the front passenger seat, arms crossed and scowling. What was the point in being young and reckless if they weren't even going to drive like normal teenagers? "Honestly, Ishida, it wouldn't kill you if you sped up just a little." Ichigo watched the speedometer from the corner of his eye. From the moment they had left, Ishida had kept the car 2 kilometers under the actual speed limit. Not even goat face was that stingy.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to understand how it turns." Ishida sniffed, sounding slightly affronted.

"And there's nothing wrong with driving the speed limit either, you ever think of that?"

"Remind me again, Kurosaki, whose car this is?"

Ichigo refrained from making a glaringly obvious comment when a minivan with two middle aged people passed them, giving him and Ishida annoyed glances.

Ichigo groaned.

"Not even a little?" He asked. Ishida completely ignored the minivan. Was it really all that wrong that he wanted Ishida to enjoy his car just a little bit before it became a normal thing? Maybe in Ishida's mind, driving under the speed limit _was_ fun, and for _extra_ fun, they could vacuum the seats once the drive was over.

"I just spent six months worth of savings on this. I will drive it the way I see fit." Ishida looked over and Ichigo could see something waver in the back of those dark blue eyes when Ichigo (he would never admit it aloud) pouted at him. "I see no reason why you can't choose the music, though." He added grudgingly.

In the grand scheme of things, Ichigo took that as a huge win. It took a little time to figure out how to hook his ipod up to the cassette player, and Ishida, thankfully, had one of those adaptor things hidden in the glove box. There was only one minor argument when Ichigo turned the music a few notches over the 'required sound volume for driving', and he had turned it back down right away since the speakers sucked. Something Ichigo would most definitely have to fix - for Ishida's sake, of course.

"So, when are you gonna let me drive it?" Ichigo asked, sliding his hand along the dashboard. He enjoyed the hum of the engine under his hands. He hoped Ishida didn't notice him eyeing up the steering wheel like it was some kind of oasis in the desert. His hands were almost itching for it.

"When I know you can treat her with the proper respect, then you can drive." Ishida said with a decisive nod.

Ichigo's brows shot up. "Her?"

Ishida immediately flushed crimson. Ichigo smiled. There was nothing cuter, Ichigo reflected, than a flustered Quincy. "People have named transportation vehicles all throughout history." He said defensively.

"You named your car?"

"It was the sensible thing to do." Ishida shot back. Ichigo was starting to get a little entertained with this, enough that he almost forgot they were getting passed by minivans.

"Wait, how do you know it's a girl?"

"Because they're all girls, Kurosaki."

"My car wouldn't be."

"Somehow," Ishida said with an amused smirk, "that doesn't surprise me."

Ichigo returned the smirk with interest. "So what did you name it?"

"_Her_."

"Fine. Her. What's the name?"

He mumbled something unintelligible into the steering wheel. Ichigo was a bit surprised. Ishida wasn't the kind of person to follow what other people did, and he was even more rarely embarrassed about the choices he made. Once Ishida made up his mind, the whole world could collapse, and he would still have said it was the reasonable thing to do.

"Eh?" He turned from watching the slowly passing scenery, cupping his hand around his ear.

Ishida's shoulders rode up near his ears. "I said, Gertrude!"

"Gertrude?" Ichigo squawked in disbelief. "That's not a name! It's an insult."

"It is not! It's perfectly sensible for a used car." Ishida snapped. That sounded more like the Ishida he knew. He flashed a slightly nervous look over at Ichigo, then "Why do you think it's a bad name?"

"_Because_," Ichigo raked his hands through his hair in frustration. For all the sewing, the magazines and other fashion-y type stuff Ishida did, how he could choose a name like that was beyond him. It was like teaching Renji that bellbottoms weren't cool, only worse, because Ishida should know this already. "Haven't you seen any American movies? The grandmothers are always named that… Well that and Edna. You have to rename it."

"We never get that far into them to remember names."

"Oh. Right." Ichigo fought to keep a blush from staining his cheeks.

After a pause, Ishida cleared his throat. "So, that's your reason?" Ishida scoffed. "I would have assumed the name meant something horrible." Ishida looked over with one brow cocked, as if to say Ichigo's argument was nothing more than a pointless worry.

"Ishida. _Please_." He was begging, Seireitei help him, he was actually _begging_. And from the look on Ishida's face, he knew it, too.

There was another long pause. "I'll tell you what," Ishida said as he rolled to a very slow stop at a red light. "I'll let you drive the car, and you'll leave me alone about my car's name."

"You'll let me…" His eyes glazed over in thought. Ichigo could see it clearly: him with one hand on the wheel, just like in those really cool car movies with Ishida scowling next to him, telling him to put his hands back to the ten and two position. He would drive like a normal person with all the windows rolled down – except for the one that didn't work. His favorite rock band would be blaring from the stereo. He could feel the smile on his face widen to almost delusional proportions before he controlled it with a somewhat serviceable scowl. "Deal."

Ishida was already going over all the rules of driving Gertrude around, even going as far as giving him directions for putting on a seatbelt. Ichigo just shook his head; made sure the light was still red, and then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

Ishida's eyes went wide and the corner of his lip tilted up. "What was that for?" Ishida wanted to know.

Ichigo shrugged. "For being you, I guess." And the really good thing was that he meant it. Even if Ishida drove like a grandmother and gave his car a name to match it, he was still a really cool boyfriend, cool enough to let Ichigo drive his first car, and let him do things like lean over and kiss him at red lights and other semi public places. If that came with geeky capes and directions about how to put on a seatbelt, he could live with that.

Now all Ichigo needed to do, was convince Ishida to break in the back seat and the day would be perfect.

~FIN~

~Symphonyofsilence


End file.
